Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has publicly dismissed claims by former Deputy Foreign Minister, Charles Owiredu, that Ghanaian visa applications were already being processed within 2 to 5 days under the previous

The rebuttal comes after Mr. Ablakwa announced a new expedited visa policy under the current government, which now guarantees application decisions within five working days which he described as a major improvement aimed at attracting more tourists and investors.

 In response, Mr. Owiredu, argued that the 2 to 5-day timeline had already been the standard during the tenure of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

"Hon Foreign Minister, please get your facts right. It is never true that it took up to 6 weeks to process Ghana visa applications. It has always been between 2 - 5 days. The exception will be when the application is incomplete, even with that, the process never took 6 weeks to complete. Under President Akufu-Addo, we even encouraged visa on arrival for year of return, detty December revellers."

However, in a post on X Mr. Ablakwa strongly rejected that claim.

“Honourable former Deputy Minister, you know you are absolutely wrong on this. Kindly check our embassy in Washington DC’s website which provides 15 to 20 business days for standard applications; our New York website indicates 3 weeks, our embassy website for Germany says 15 business days, and our UK High Commission website indicates 15 working days. These are just a few websites exposing your misleading presentation.”

"None of the websites, which by the way were created when you were Deputy Minister, states that standard visas can be obtained between 2 to 5 days," he said.

"Mr. Ablakwa’s reforms which seeks to speed up visa processing and enhance consular efficiency are being presented as a key example of the new administration’s dedication to improving public service delivery."